Bande Fort

Bande Fort

On a mound about seventy-five feet high, within musket range of the left bank of the Terekhol creek, stands a ruined,irregular fort tress built partly of good masonry and partly of loose stones and mud. The outer wall of the fortress is stillseen, though in a dilapidated condition.Besides the fort, there are the remains of some mosques, wells and tombs. To the south of the river, built of lateritecovered with cement, is the Juma mosque measuring forty by eighteen. The walls are damaged and the roof is gone, but some handsome cornices and entrance flight of steps remain. Outside the mosque is a cenotaph of Syed Abdul Kiidar Jilani, the Piran-pir or chief saint of Baghdad, where Muhammedan marriage parties usually come to pray.2 Close by is a pond, 71′ by 60′. Near it, in fairly good repair, is a travellers’ home, musafarkhana, a lofty octagonal tower with- domed roof. The door-posts are formed of solid blocks of stone. Inside there are traces of two tombs and some very neat laterite carving in the arches. The building is surrounded by it groin-roofed gallery 110 feet long and ten wide. About 150 yards further is another roofless and ruined mosque 54′ by 28′. It has two rows of octagonal plastered stone-pillars with carved capitals and fine tracery about the arches and windows. Outside the building is a pond built in stone and mortar, sixtyone feet by fifty, with twenty-four stone steps leading to the water, and small. cells all round; the southern portion of it is in ruined condition. A few hundred yards further is the Redi Gumbaj or Buffala Mosque which has lately been restored. There are also small tombs and ruins.

Bande ( Siivantvac;li r.; 150 45′ N, 73 0 50′ E; p. 4,154), is on the right bank of the Terekhol creek near its -mouth, about six miles south of Savantvadi. The nearest railway station is Belgaum 71 miles to the south-east. Upto Bande, the river is tidal. Under the Bijapur kings (1489-1686), Bande, then known as Adilabad, was the chief town of a district, subha, under a minister, vazir. In the beginning of the sixteenth century (1514), it was a town of Moors and Gentiles, with merchants who dealt with traders from the Deccan and from the Malabar coast. Many ships from different quarters brought rice, coarse millet and vegetables, and took away cocoanuts, spices, pepper and other drugs to Diu, Aden and Ormuz. There was also such export of goods and provisions from the interior.2 In 1538, Bande was described as better and nobler, both from traffic and size, than Veilgurle, admitting galleys at low tide.3 Nine years later ( 1547), it suffered much by a treaty between the Portuguese and the rulers of Vijaynagar, which provided that all Vijaynagar goodsshould be sent to Ankola and Honiivar in the Kanara district instead of to Bande, and that all horses imported by the Portuguese should go to Vijaynagar instead of to Bijapur.4 In the seventeenth century ( 1638), it is described as sh’ongand fairly large with very beautiful streets, and a great trade with the Portuguese in pepper and European stiffs5. About thirty years later (1670), it was said to be a mighty city, two leagues from Goa and two from Vengurle, built near theDery, Tereh, with broad streets, many fair buildings and several temples. In 1804, when the feuds behveen Shriram Savant and Phonda Savant III were at their height, Bande was handed over to (Chandroba, Shriram Savant’s illegitimateson who soon after (1817) became so powerful as to hold it successfully against the Vadi ruler. In 1826, it was a small port with 105 houses and five shops on a river navigable for large boats.